Food delivery: which grocery and meal delivery services have slots right now?

Update 21/04/20: As lockdown measures continue to cause disruption across the UK, it's still hard to find free food delivery and click & collect slots. Even though Tesco, Sainsbury's, Waitrose and Asda have all increased capacity to meet the unprecedented demand for online orders, our research has shown that only a few slots are available on a given day.

To help identify elderly and vulnerable customers, supermarkets are using customer and government data to prioritise food delivery slots for those who need it most. Make sure you've signed up to the government's database of clinically vulnerable people if you need support.

Some meal delivery services are still running too, and may prove to be a better alternative – see below. There are also plenty of local community groups that are organising food delivery for people who are self-isolating via Facebook, WhatsApp and more, so keep an eye on what's happening in your area.

Online food delivery services have been under strain since the coronavirus lockdown. It's been hard to book a grocery delivery, but as we move further into April we're starting to see small signs of progress.

The main advice, still, is to visit a physical store if you can, so that supermarkets can prioritise food delivery slots for elderly or vulnerable customers. However, if you need to order food online, many supermarkets are releasing small numbers of food delivery slots for elderly or vulnerable customers throughout the day – so keep trying. You should be able to find a slot eventually.

So when will more online grocery delivery slots open up? We've signed up to all the major supermarkets and we're assessing the situation daily across the country, in London, Leeds, Portsmouth, Manchester and Bath.

Your area may differ, but the situation changes daily so it's important to keep checking. Currently, it looks like it'll be mid-April before we start to see many more food delivery slots available. However, we'll tell you which supermarkets are offering food delivery slots here, as soon as we see them.

Please remember to use all food delivery services responsibly. Only order what you need to preserve stocks for others who might be in need.